A/N: So, for those of you who haven't heard the news, I finally got a teaching job! This story is totally inspired by the shit I see on a daily basis. The following chapters are not necessarily in chronological order. More than likely, they'll be slice of life kinds of things. There's no set schedule for updates on this story, and it's not going into my rotation of priority stories. I'll write and post for it whenever the mood strikes. There's no shortage of inspiration (my kids are insane and hilarious), but there's definitely a shortage of time to write.

Obviously, I'm not putting any of my own students' names in this story. The situations in each chapter won't always be entirely accurate depictions of scenarios I've encountered (it really depends on the mood of the chapter, and a bunch of other things). Also, I'm definitely not as wonderful a teacher as this version of Cobra will be. He's the teacher I aspire to be, honestly.

I hope you enjoy!

Our Prologue

When you think of elementary schools, you always think of bright colors and young smiling faces. Of playgrounds and using scissors and glue and sharing your favorite markers with your best friends. Of tall buildings and beautifully decorated doors that made you feel welcome to learn. Sometimes, you even remember that one teacher - someone like Miss Jenkins or Miss Bartleby with her frizzy grey hair - who made learning so fun that you couldn't wait to get to school every morning to learn.

When you go home from those schools, you tell your parents all about your day. They smile at you and listen to everything that happened. They sign your permission slips and help you with fundraisers. They encourage you to become more invested in school when they sit down and help you with homework.

But those sorts of schools aren't where we're sent. Many times, we're sent to places with drab walls and low ceilings, stuck in the middle of the ghetto where we already live. We smile sometimes, but it's usually only when we're at lunch and talking to each other freely.

We already have the people at home yelling at us, and that's just how we're used to interacting. Sometimes, our grandparents are raising us, instead of our parents because they just couldn't be bothered. Sometimes, we're already so starved for attention that we ache to just have one person give us a hug.

When we go home, we're not given hugs. We go home to the person who's watching over us already having gotten a phone call from the teacher about the fights we got into, or how often we were disruptive in class.

Of course, it's not all of us. Some of us are loved and welcomed home, and we get help with our homework just like you do. And then some of us don't even have a home to go to at all. We leave the school and wonder how we're going to get the things we need just to get to the next day.

A good number of us, however, don't want to be at school to learn. We don't go because we love the teachers or what we're learning about, or even the projects we might get to do. We're desperate to go to school simply because it's better than being at home, or out on the street.

These schools of ours have teachers who don't smile at us, because they're too busy worrying about how many fights they'll have to deal with that day. They yell because that's the only way we respond, but we don't always need to be yelled at. The worst of the teachers at our schools are there for the paycheck, not because they want to help us learn. They go through the motions, and we either follow along at whatever pace they decide is appropriate, or we're left behind to fail the grade and try again next year.

That's how it's been at Simmons Elementary for years. But things are changing this year. We have a new principal, new administration, and a bunch of new teachers who are supposed to be better than the ones who were fired last year for not being good enough teachers. We think it was good those teachers were fired, too, because a lot of them just didn't teach us anything at all.

But there's a rumor that one of the few teachers who everyone loved having is still around this year. He looks mean, and everyone knows his name. His kids are the only ones who consistently pass their tests, even the ones who normally struggle to learn in other classes. He makes math and science fun. And everyone knows that he breaks up fights without hesitation.

It's no secret that we're lucky to have Mister Cobra at our school. He knows how to talk to us, and he's funny. We've heard from the last batch of fifth graders that he's a no bullshit kind of teacher. And now it's our turn to find out what he's really like, past seeing him with his class in the hallway.

For once, we're excited to go to school for more than just the lukewarm lunch in the cafeteria and getting out of our run-down apartments. We're excited to be with Mister Cobra in fifth grade.